When the Country’s Leading Party Remains Excluded from Power

We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in Germany, our great neighbor and widely regarded, alongside France, as the other pillar of the European Union.

As the September regional elections approach, CDU leaders have repeatedly warned against any cooperation with the Alternative for Germany (AfD). For many conservative officials, an alliance with the party would constitute a historic break capable of undermining the very identity of the CDU itself.

Yet behind this public firmness lies a question that is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid: what happens when a party that the political establishment refuses to see in government gradually becomes one of the country’s leading electoral choices?

The question no longer concerns the AfD alone. It now concerns Germany itself. And whether some may like it or not, what concerns Berlin also concerns Paris. The Franco-German partnership—or the German-French partnership, depending on which side of the Rhine one happens to be standing—is deeply intertwined.

Eastern Germany: The Federal Republic’s Political Laboratory

Among Germany’s sixteen federal states, the AfD’s strongest bastions remain concentrated in the territories of the former East Germany. Saxony, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, and Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania have provided the party with its best electoral results for years.

This political geography is not accidental.

Eastern Germany followed a unique historical trajectory. After National Socialism came forty years of communist rule, followed by a reunification that was sometimes experienced more as an integration than as a true merger. For part of the eastern population, this succession of historical experiences fostered a more critical........

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